Best Reasons To Home School Your Children

Why do families home school? I cannot say that I am cut out for it myself, but if you have the temperament for it, there are some great reasons to home-school. Here are the best I found.

Control Over Curriculum

Being able to control what the child learns is perhaps the primary reason many families switch from traditional education to home-schooling. Many families prefer to direct their children in the beliefs of the their faith, but religion is not the only reason to home-school.

Children with special needs may benefit from the extra attention and customized curriculum available at home. Very gifted children are often schooled at home, as are children with specific learning challenges. Additionally, children may have more say in their own studies, progress at their own pace, and study topics in a more in-depth way than they would be able to at school.

Spending Time Together

Many home-schooling families love spending more time together as a family than they would otherwise be able to. Children are often allowed to follow their own schedules as opposed to conforming to the school's schedule. Many parents love the quality time they spend instructing their children at home. Children who study at home are also more available to help out with chores or otherwise contribute to the family unit, which can create stronger bonds between family members.

Selection of Peers

Many parents are concerned about the types of children their kids are exposed to in a public or even private school setting. They may fear that other children's families do not share the same values that their family wishes to instill.

Home-schooling parents feel that by home-schooling, peer pressure is reduced, and that their children are less likely to be overly influenced by cultural norms of clothing, music, language, sex, and drug use. The social life of the home-schooled child is less independent of his parents and therefore they can maintain more control.

Protection From Cultural Influence & Violence

Home-schooling families often want to raise children who value home and family more than materialistic goods. In addition, some parents oppose the competitive nature of our school system, if not society in general.

Children who have been singled out as different from their peers in some way may be picked on at school. Home-schooling eliminates all these outside pressures and lets kids concentrate on their education.

School violence portrayed in the media has convinced many families to home-school. They feel their kids are much safer from random or gang violence at home than in school.

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Comments 11 comments

shalom 5 years ago

hate public school 2 many bullies:D:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

leeturner 5 years ago from Roswell, GA

We've decided to try homeschooling since much of the social peer and outside influences have been an issue for our household. We will incorporate social activities into the program and allow her to visit friends and go to her old school games and such. I believe we can make her focus more and become an A student .vs. a B- student,and also educate her on topics that the school system does not teach our kids which is how to be financially independent or entrepreneurial minded. We will teach her about stocks and investments at a young age so that when she is ready to go to work, and if the job market is challenging as it is today she could have a greater edge on how to survive as a business leader. Check out my hub on teenagers and the influences they face with school, media, and technology. Great hub. thanks.

Hopefully they'll reverse this and continue to allow it--i know I want to home school my kids when I have them!

drazhardaud 8 years ago

home schooling is suitable for adults...

caspar 8 years ago from UK

It is not an easy decision to make. I've considered homeschooling at various times for each one of my children for different reasons, but in the end they've stayed at school and seem to be doing well. Very much an individual choice to suit the parents and child.

Zsuzsy Bee 8 years ago from Ontario/Canada

My older daughter is just in this dilemma, deciding about homeschooling for my granddaughters, wondering what the right thing to do is. As Denmarkguy said it is a trade-off. I'm thinking a good school has more fun to offer along with the education...It definitely is a catch22 subject.

great HUB

regards Zsuzsy

Denmarkguy 8 years ago from Port Townsend

It always seems to be about trade-offs.

Home schooling seems to create academically smarter kids (just look at the participants in such things as the National Spelling Bee), but they tend to go into adult life with a naive view of the reality of the world. Public schooling seems to turn out almost the reverse... academically lacking, but generally "street savvy" kids... which ultimately (I suppose) begs the question of what our goals are.

MrMarmalade 8 years ago from Sydney

I have no against thoughts, but I believe children have got to learn to react to the world and to other children

Great hub

thank you

Misha 8 years ago from DC Area

Yeah Lela,

We were facing that question recently, and finally decided not to home school. As much as we would love to avoid external influences on our kids, we think home schooling lacks social skills development, and this was the key point in our decision.

We were lucky to find a montessory school not far away, and since their philosophy is pretty close to what we preach, we think it will turn out OK at the end :)